Black Thursday for many shoppers

Alissa Seal of Manitwoc adds a second tower speaker to the shopping cart manned by her great-grandmother Irma Deisinger of Manitowoc during the 6-hour Black Friday sale at Menards in Manitowoc.(Photo: Sue Pischke/HTR Media)Buy Photo

MANITOWOC – For national retailers including Kohl’s, Shopko and Walmart, Black Friday has faded away.

“Now, it’s Black Thursday with the best deals,” said Kristina Bauer, a customer associate at Kohl’s in Harbor Town. She started working at 9:45 p.m. Thanksgiving evening and was set to finish her shift at 5:30 a.m. Black Friday.

But not before about 75 32-inch TVs priced at $99.99 were gobbled up after store opening at 6 p.m. by shoppers who presumably did the same to their turkeys a few hours earlier.

“I’m going home to take a shower and then go to my deer stand,” said Jim Poff, with a crock pot among his Kohl’s purchases that he hoped would be filled with venison in the not-too-distant future.

Poff was buying several rolls of gift wrap, already 60 percent off, though he admitted he’s not the neatest at covering up his Christmas presents.

“We’ve been shopping since 4 p.m.,”said Amy Bradl, 13 hours into a consumer frenzy Black Friday morning, including multiple Lakeshore area stops, as well as stores in Green Bay and a wee hours in the morning breakfast at IHOP with her Manitowoc friend, Erica Behrendt.

She was buying a Christmas gift at Kohl’s “for my secret lover,” before the duo headed next door to Lowe’s and its 5 a.m. opening.

Family owned Menards didn’t open Thursday, declaring in its advertising that “Thanksgiving is a time for togetherness,which should be celebrated with all those we hold dear.”

Manitowoc Store Manager Chad Nikolai said he doesn’t think Menards ever will open on the Black Thursday. But he did predict a 5-gallon wet-dry vacuum — $9.99 instead of the regular $59.99 — would “fly off the shelf.”

Just before Menards’ 6 a.m. opening, with more than 100 in line and the temperature about 10 degrees, Teresa Robinson, front end manager, addressed several dozen workers.

“Be friendly with guests ... (but) you don’t need to make a huge conversation ... and have fun!” Robinson declared.

First through the doors, after waiting in the frigid darkness for 75 minutes, were Crystal Wondrash and Aarora Randall, both of Two Rivers.

Randall has three young children. “Helicopter, baby doll sets, arts and craft kids, and a giant gumball tube,” she said of her shopping priorities.

Another Menards Black Friday shopper was Joe Metzen, who has four boys. He was set to buy three 10-foot kayaks at $149 each.

A couple miles away, Fleet Farm also had a 6 a.m. Black Friday opening while staying closed Thanksgiving. Danielle Greetan and Zachary Simpson, both of Manitowoc, were first in a very long line, shopping for “nothing in particular,” Greetan said.

But since they would be among the first 500 shoppers they would be getting a free fox pillow pet, a stuffed plush animal.

Green Bay’s Becky Faubert was in Manitowoc to visit her fiance so she was at Menards to buy a camouflage bedding set.

‘Out here freezing’

For Manitowoc’s Lindsey Mack standing in the cold pre-Fleet Farm opening “is all about the love. I’m taking one for the team — buying for my grandparents, I’ve got their shopping list — so I’m the one out here freezing so they can stay in bed.”

New Shopko employee Devon Litel didn’t start work until 4 a.m. Black Friday morning so he missed Thanksgiving night’s frenzy. The Lincoln High School senior said he hopes to keep working at the Calumet Avenue store after the holiday season before heading off in the fall to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville to pursue an engineering degree.

Melinda St. Laurent, customer service manager, said Shopko’s opening on Thanksgiving enhances customer convenience given them another option.

She said plush toys and bedding linked to the popular Disney film, “Frozen,” were hot sellers. “And it’s not just a girls’ thing,” said St. Laurent, who’s been with Shopko for 10 years.

No bedding was on sale at the Ace Hardware-American Home & Garden on Menasha Avenue in Manitowoc, owned and operated by Dale and Kim Lindner since 1992.

They were among the Lakeshore area’s pioneers of early opening Black Friday sales but now open at their regular time including 7 a.m. on Friday. “The novelty has worn off,” Dale Lindner said.

The couple do have hundreds of items on sale with enticing rebates, “but no gimmicky stuff,” Dale Lindner, of Branch, said.

Another independent businessman, Chuck Doute, said Friday morning that Thanksgiving evening sales at his Sears Appliance & Hardware Store on the city’s far east side, in the mall anchored by Younkers, were so strong his location was No. 1 in his district.

Doute said sales across the region are charted instantly with his store briskly selling washers, dryers, ovens, refrigerators, and other appliances at deep discounts, savings customers hundreds of dollars before the sale prices expired Friday afternoon.

On Friday morning Vicki (Stiefvater) Swingle was buying warm pajamas at Schroeder’s Department Store. “This is just one of those places you have to stop in at when you’re home,” said the Two Rivers Washington High School class of 1977 graduate.

She retired after 30 years in the U.S. Air Force and now teachers Air Force Junior ROTC at Bellevue High School in Nebraska, where when students get thirst they don’t make a stop at a bubbler, like the one inside Schroeder’s. It’s a drinking fountain, if you please.